Surround the State in Song 2018

Congratulations to this year's Surround the State in Song honor choir participants! 

Santa's Elf Choir

The 5th and 6th grade choir was asked to be the entertainment for the annual Old Fashioned Holiday Supper hosted by our local museum. What an honor! We felt like royalty having a photo shoot for the press release, guest visitors at our rehearsals, and free supper at the event! It was a fun way to kick off the holiday season and show off all of the amazing talent we have in our school.

Surround the State in Song

The NDACDA "Surround the State in Song" honor choir took place on Oct. 8th. This is one of my favorite activities as a music teacher, because I remember my very first honor choir better than any other I attended. The first time you sing with a large group of talented, passionate people who love singing as much as you do is always amazing. This year I had the opportunity to take seven wonderful singers from my 5th and 6th grade chorus. I hope they had as much fun as I did!

Music Festival

In February I took my 5th and 6th grade choir to the area music festival. I had 14 different groups performing, including solos, duets, and quartets. The full choir also performed. As always, I was extremely proud of and impressed by everyone! Standing in front of a judge still makes me nervous, so I know how much courage it takes for them to do it as 5th and 6th graders.

Everyone bright eyed and bushy tailed on the bus at 8 a.m.!!

Don't we look good in our choir t-shirts?!

 

 

Concert Season!!

Here are some pictures from all of the wonderful concerts we have had this December. I'm always so proud of the kids and this year I had 100% attendance at all of my concerts!! Not a single kid missed! All 43 kids at the choir concert, all 46 at the 3rd grade musical, and all 38 at the 4th grade musical...that's 127 kids!! WOW!!!

5th and 6th Grade Choir Concert

Singing "Carol of the Elves" by Janet Gardner

42 kids!! The biggest choir I've ever had!

3rd Grade Musical- "The Grumps of Ring-a-Ding Town"

Hear the merry bells ring!

Being "Grumpy"

We're ornery and crabby!

Mrs. Gault's Class

Mrs. Schepp's Class

4th Grade Musical-"The Grumps of Ring-a-Ding Town"

We all do better when we work together!

Snowmageddon! HELP!!

Mrs. Foster's Class

Mrs. Grochow's Class

They wanted to do a grumpy picture, too!!

Surround the State in Song

"Surround the State in Song" was a great event again this year! I've posted about this every year, but if you don't know what "Surround the State" is, it is a 5th and 6th grade honor choir hosted by the ND ACDA chapter. Students from all over the state attend a day-long rehearsal at 5 different locations around North Dakota. They rehearse the same songs and perform a concert at exactly the same time, 4:00. This way, the students are literally surrounding the state in song! What a cool concept!

I took 7 students from my 5th and 6th grade chorus. We also have choir members from a private Catholic school and some of those students attended as well. Here are some pictures from our day.

A little break between rehearsals!

Don't they look good?!

The members from our choir! So proud of these young people!! :)

Choir Pizza Party

We always have a choir pizza party for the last concert rehearsal of the year. The kids stay after school and we practice our concert songs for an extra half hour and then we feast!! It's always a fun way to end the year and gives us that little bit of extra practice time we need.

Music Festival

Each year I take my choir students to an area music festival where they get to perform in front of a judge and get feedback and ribbons. It was cancelled this year, so we decided to hold our own in-house festival instead. I had 15 groups prepare and perform solos, duets, trios, or small groups. The choir also performed a piece from our winter concert. A judge gave them critiques and ratings just like they would receive at a high school music contest. It was a great experience for everyone and it gave us a chance to show off our new choir t-shirts!!

Surround the State in Song 2014

Every year, NDACDA has an honor choir for 5th and 6th grade students. Teachers select their top 6 choir students to attend and they spend one day together rehearsing for a concert that afternoon. The cool thing about this choir is that at the same time our concert was being performed, 4 other concerts with the exact same music were being performed at the exact same time all around the state. We literally "Surrounded the State in Song".

This is always one of my favorite events during the year and its the first time many of these kids have sung together with a large group. This year, our conductor was Beth Rasch, the music teacher at Ramstad Middle School in Minot. She did an excellent job! Our choir was made up of around 50 students from 10 different schools. Here are some pictures from our day.





Hanging out with Colonel Sanders!

 Two of the instrumentalists for the percussion in "Rhythm of the Rain".

Another percussionist for "Rhythm of the Rain"

The students from Ely and Little Flower

And of course we had to take a goofy picture! 

Music Contest

In February, I took all 27 of my choir students to the area music festival. I had a total of 17 groups competing, including solos, duets, and the full choir. As you can see from the picture, we had a very successful day (blue is the highest ranking you can get with red the 2nd highest)! The choir also received a blue Superior rating. Way to go!!!

Choir Holiday Party

My 5th and 6th grade choir students had a GREAT concert performance last week, so this week at rehearsal we celebrated by having a little party. It got a bit loud and wild, but we had a lot of fun! Here's what we played:

Paper Plate Pictures
The students had to hold their paper plate on their head and draw
1. A floor
2. A Christmas tree on the floor with decorations
3. A fireplace with a mantel
4. A stocking hanging from that mantel
5. A star on top of the tree
6. A present under the tree

When they were finished, we scored their drawings.
2 pts if their tree touched the floor
2 pts if the stocking touched the mantel
1 pt if the star touched the tree
1 pt for every ornament that was on the tree
1 pt if the fireplace was NOT touching the tree (that's a fire hazard!)
2 pts if the present was under the tree

The students had a blast and there were lots of giggles as they looked at their drawings.

Minute to Win It Snowball Toss

Students sat across from each other. One person held a cup and the other had to toss as many snowballs (mini marshmallows) into the cup as they could in 1 minute. The winner made 57 marshmallows!!

Minute to Win It Shovel the Snow

Every student had a cup and a straw. Using only their straw, they had to get as many marshmallows as they could into their cup in 1 minute. Finally, the room was silent!! Our winner had 21!

At the end of our party, I handed out ornaments that I made for each of the students to hang on their tree. How cute are these!?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!!